Four drone makers to proceed with preliminary designs for carrier strike drones.

A week after recommissioning Northrop Grumman's X-47B proof-of-concept carrier-launched drones for additional testing, the US Navy awarded $15 million contracts to four companies contending to be the maker of the X-47B's successor. The contracts are part of the Navy's Unmanned Carrier Launched Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) aircraft program, which aims to produce an autonomous robotic attack plane capable of spying on and attacking enemies.

The relatively small $15 million contracts—awarded to Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and General Atomics (the manufacturer of the Predator and Reaper armed drones)—will fund preliminary design reviews of proposals from the companies. The Navy will pick a winning design by the fall of next year. The goal is to start taking delivery of the winning UCLASS drone within three to six years; just how fast the winning drone is produced will depend on how "mature" the winning design is.

The Navy has said that the UCLASS aircraft have to be compatible with the fleet's existing bombs and that no new weapons will be designed for the aircraft. UCLASS will likely not be a replacement for the firepower of the Navy's and the Marine Corps' FA-18s; the goal is an aircraft capable of reconnaissance and "light strike" using existing weapons in the Navy's arsenal, up to 250 pounds each.

Its experience with the X-47B may give Northrop Grumman a leg-up in the competition. However, that aircraft still has some bugs to be shaken out, as the two X-47B drones tested recently by the Navy both auto-aborted their final test carrier landings after detecting an error in their terminal guidance systems. Both drones flew back and landed on a conventional runway safely on their own.

I really hope they change the name at some point soon, "UCLASS" and "UNCLASS" are too close to each other; especially since both the design documents/blueprints/operating manuals/etc and surveillance data gathered by the UCLASS drone will most likely be a classification other than UNCLASS.

I really hope they change the name at some point soon, "UCLASS" and "UNCLASS" are too close to each other; especially since both the design documents/blueprints/operating manuals/etc and surveillance data gathered by the UCLASS drone will most likely be a classification other than UNCLASS.

I'm just glad we didn't end up with some horrid backronym like we usually do. Then again, UCLASS is just the name of the drone type... the drone itself will be named something different (just like we don't refer to our Aircraft Carriers by acronyms like CATOBAR, STOVL, STOBAR, etc.)

Since drones are unmanned, there's a lot of opportunity to manage them fundamentally differently than manned aircraft. On carriers in particular, this would offer a huge improvement.

Instead of the bottleneck of queuing up drones to take off conventionally from the single carrier runway, why aren't they being stored in tiny cubes, with some kind of electric catapult built-in? Imagine the improvement if a box of hundreds of drones were lifted up to the deck in the same time as a single fighter jet. And as soon as they were top-side, they could ALL be airborne in just a few seconds, without taking up time on the runway, nor manpower being queued-up for takeoff. There are small hobbyist remote-controlled planes that have been doing stationary vertical take-off for a number of years, so this should be quite practical, and a huge improvement in the operations of an aircraft carrier.

I really hope they change the name at some point soon, "UCLASS" and "UNCLASS" are too close to each other; especially since both the design documents/blueprints/operating manuals/etc and surveillance data gathered by the UCLASS drone will most likely be a classification other than UNCLASS.

One thing is for sure, drone warfare has NO CLASS...mano y mano on the ground is the gentlemen's way settle up...

A drone that carries 250lb of weaponry would have to be too large to be stored by the 100. The one in the picture seems to be not much smaller than a fighter jet (if someone with better knowledge would chime it, that'd be great.)

Unless the point of your drone is to be able to carry up to 250 pounds of standard munitions (though 250 pounds seems rather low, even for light strike), in which case your plan makes a lot less sense rcxb.

Since drones are unmanned, there's a lot of opportunity to manage them fundamentally differently than manned aircraft. On carriers in particular, this would offer a huge improvement.

Instead of the bottleneck of queuing up drones to take off conventionally from the single carrier runway, why aren't they being stored in tiny cubes, with some kind of electric catapult built-in? Imagine the improvement if a box of hundreds of drones were lifted up to the deck in the same time as a single fighter jet. And as soon as they were top-side, they could ALL be airborne in just a few seconds, without taking up time on the runway, nor manpower being queued-up for takeoff. There are small hobbyist remote-controlled planes that have been doing stationary vertical take-off for a number of years, so this should be quite practical, and a huge improvement in the operations of an aircraft carrier.

The limiting factor in carrier takeoffs is acceleration to a sufficient velocity such that the aircraft generates lift. That acceleration to flight speed (and the deceleration on landing) requires the largest warships ever constructed. Trying to accomplish that acceleration out of a box over several meters would places incredible loads on the aircraft and require immensely powerful accelerators (think explosives and rockets).

I don't know a lot about R/C planes, but my understanding is that they generally have much higher thrust ratios than larger aircraft, including large UAVs such as the ones the Navy is contemplating.

Unless the point of your drone is to be able to carry up to 250 pounds of standard munitions (though 250 pounds seems rather low, even for light strike), in which case your plan makes a lot less sense rcxb.

Could be wrong, but I think the plan is for hardpoints that can handle up to 250 pound munitions. One or two 250-pounders under each wing (or a handful in the belly) and it starts to look like a light strike craft.

I also need to keep in mind they're probably talking about arming it with hellfires or similar ATG missles, which are probably lighter then the 500lb and 1000lb bombs I tend to think about when it comes to ground strike missions (I may spend too much time flying WWII airplanes on the computer....)

Unless the point of your drone is to be able to carry up to 250 pounds of standard munitions (though 250 pounds seems rather low, even for light strike), in which case your plan makes a lot less sense rcxb.

Yeah, it's not much. Without any launch equipment a hellfire (AGM-114) is right around 100lbs and a sidewinder (AIM-9) is right around 200.

Maybe that's the current thinking, since most engagements right now are for only a single target, but it seems shortsighted if we ever get into a larger conflict.

The limiting factor in carrier takeoffs is acceleration to a sufficient velocity such that the aircraft generates lift. That acceleration to flight speed (and the deceleration on landing) requires the largest warships ever constructed. Trying to accomplish that acceleration out of a box over several meters would places incredible loads on the aircraft and require immensely powerful accelerators (think explosives and rockets).

I don't know a lot about R/C planes, but my understanding is that they generally have much higher thrust ratios than larger aircraft, including large UAVs such as the ones the Navy is contemplating.

It is definitely possible, of course, given the right aircraft and launch platform designs, especially with unmanned craft that don't have to worry about the limitations of human endurance; indeed, if your engines have greater than 1 TWR you could simply elevate the craft vertically and launch it that way. That would be inconvenient for humans, but not at all a problem for a drone carrier.

However, the current drones are closer to manned aircraft with a computer sitting in the cockpit, which makes sense, given they're flying off already existing carriers that have to accommodate manned launches anyways. You also have to land such a plane, but in theory it could do the same thing (landing vertically, which would be... challenging, for a human, but relatively trivial for a drone). I fully expect in the next decade or two to see compact drone-carriers that launch drones in that manner (manned aircraft won't vanish for a while, but drones can supplement them quite well).

A drone that carries 250lb of weaponry would have to be too large to be stored by the 100. The one in the picture seems to be not much smaller than a fighter jet (if someone with better knowledge would chime it, that'd be great.)

The total weaponry is not less than 250 lbs. -- the Navy wants it to be able to carry weapons that individually weigh up to 250 lbs.. So, 250-lb bombs.

The F-35 isn't a bad concept. Its just that when you try to design what is in effect 3 radically different requirements into a single airframe...

it doth not work so well.

Also...gross mismanagement and perverse incentives. The USAF, in particular, seems really awful at procurement. They haven't built a new aircraft on-time and under budget since...well...the F-117. Which was forced into retirement because of how bad the Raptor was over-cost. The B-2, C-17, E-10, F-22, KC-767 were all grossly over budget. The E-10 and KC-767 were cancelled (the latter rebid). The B-2 and F-22 were slashed to a fraction of their intended numbers. The C-17 puts a lot of pork in a lot of pockets and the entirety of the Joint Chiefs seems unable to kill it even though the Air Force already has more planes than they ever wanted.

The limiting factor in carrier takeoffs is acceleration to a sufficient velocity such that the aircraft generates lift. That acceleration to flight speed (and the deceleration on landing) requires the largest warships ever constructed. Trying to accomplish that acceleration out of a box over several meters would places incredible loads on the aircraft and require immensely powerful accelerators (think explosives and rockets).

Huge carriers with catapults are needed because manned jets are extremely large and heavy, their supersonic aerodynamics means they need to accelerate to much, much higher speeds before liftoff, and the squishy human in the front wouldn't like the sudden acceleration of being shot out of a box like a projectile from a gun. Drones have none of these inherent problems, so your reply makes absolutely no sense.

Drones have none of these inherent problems, so your reply makes absolutely no sense.

Perhaps, but there's still only a finite amount of acceleration an airframe tends to be designed for, and a certain amount of distance needed at a given acceleration rate.

Trying to get a drone of sufficient mass to carry a useful payload and range (at least from what the rest of the posts seem to imply) makes it sound like shooting off the deck immediately with a few JATO rockets might still not necessarily be a workable idea-- nevermind the backblast...

The F-35 isn't a bad concept. Its just that when you try to design what is in effect 3 radically different requirements into a single airframe...

it doth not work so well.

viz. F-111

Tne FB-111 turned out to be a not-so-bad medium range strategic bomber. Sadly, it was designed to be a fighter. Sort of.

No, it was being designed as a bomber first then fighter requirements were added later by the Navy. It also suffered from being designed when assumptions on fighter design were radically changing after experiences in Vietnam.

The F/A-18 (both regular and super versions), and the F-15E are good examples of a single airframe design accomplishing two roles. However even there, they're both compromising performance over their dedicated predecessors (although F-15E does a remarkable job handling both roles and compromises very little on air-to-air capability).

Having "a few bugs to work out" is far, FAR further along than only having mock-ups or Powerpoints. The real shame is that the USN has reduced the requirement for UCLASS to such a degree that anything based on the X-47B will be overkill. The X-47B is the F-22 and they're asking for a Cessna.

Its experience with the X-47B may give Northrop Grumman a leg-up in the competition. However, that aircraft still has some bugs to be shaken out, as the two X-47B drones tested recently by the Navy both auto-aborted their final test carrier landings after detecting an error in their terminal guidance systems. Both drones flew back and landed on a conventional runway safely on their own.

Of course it still has some bugs to be shaken out; it's an X-plane after all. From the reports I've read, one of three fully redundant navigation systems was not completely healthy, so the vehicle autonomously aborted the approach and returned to the land-based runway. This is a common occurrence in this kind of very early flight testing of brand new functionality, and the preprogrammed contingency logic - abort the landing and return to base - was also totally appropriate given the early flight test environment. In a production vehicle, two out of three navigation systems would be perfectly adequate to successfully land; in flight test, it's generally better to exercise caution and understand the failure thoroughly before continuing.

The F-35 isn't a bad concept. Its just that when you try to design what is in effect 3 radically different requirements into a single airframe...

it doth not work so well.

Also...gross mismanagement and perverse incentives. The USAF, in particular, seems really awful at procurement. They haven't built a new aircraft on-time and under budget since...well...the F-117. Which was forced into retirement because of how bad the Raptor was over-cost. The B-2, C-17, E-10, F-22, KC-767 were all grossly over budget. The E-10 and KC-767 were cancelled (the latter rebid). The B-2 and F-22 were slashed to a fraction of their intended numbers. The C-17 puts a lot of pork in a lot of pockets and the entirety of the Joint Chiefs seems unable to kill it even though the Air Force already has more planes than they ever wanted.

The C-17 has the benefit of being useful in humanitarian missions (see: Haiti). All the other craft you mention are only useful in an aggressive manner (well, the refueling can be used for cargo missions as well).

Drones have none of these inherent problems, so your reply makes absolutely no sense.

Perhaps, but there's still only a finite amount of acceleration an airframe tends to be designed for, and a certain amount of distance needed at a given acceleration rate.

Trying to get a drone of sufficient mass to carry a useful payload and range (at least from what the rest of the posts seem to imply) makes it sound like shooting off the deck immediately with a few JATO rockets might still not necessarily be a workable idea-- nevermind the backblast...

That sounds quote a lot like the old Chance Vought Regulus missile which was effectively a small jet aircraft with a pair of booster rockets to allow it to be launched off ships and submarines without a flight deck or catapults. The range of the original version wasn't great but it did carry a 3,000lb warhead.

Launching would seem like less of a challenge than getting it back if you don't have anywhere for it to land.

I wonder if there will ever come a time when they just get rid of human pilots altogether. There is only so many g forces that a human body can take.

There's only so many g-forces an airframe can take. They're really quite similar - a properly trained pilot can take nearly as much g-force as the airframe can take (note: in fighters).

High performance aircraft for private use are not as strong as military fighters (the pilot can take more g-force than the plane can). In this case, the pilot needs to take care not to exceed the airframe's limit.

There's only so many g-forces an airframe can take. They're really quite similar - a properly trained pilot can take nearly as much g-force as the airframe can take (note: in fighters).

That's circular logic... There's no point in designing a piloted jet that can pull many more G-forces than the squishy pilot that will be inside. If we look at unpiloted aircraft, things like missiles can pull many more Gs than a human could handle. It's no stretch to imagine that future fighter drones will be designed to handle obscene G-forces as well.

What is the point of all this, haven't we had computer controlled attack drones for decades?

I think they were called missiles.

A missile cannot return to the launch craft, thus every target destroyed also destroys the complex and expensive guidance system along with the expensive long range propulsion system. Cruise missiles are a million per shot. JDAM's and dumb bombs are far cheaper.

The F-35 is a colossal waste, and it makes more sense to invest in this X-47B tech until it can be scaled up for full strike missions. We need to defund the F-35 it's a $400 billion hole in a sequestered economy. It can't even fill its mission requirements.

The F-35 would be a much better design if they had not added STO/VL into it. The Marines could not afford an independent program for a Harrier replacement, so they had to latch on to another program, giving us our current program.The Air Force could have just bought the Navy version straight up, like they did with the F-4, but no, they had to have their own unique airframe...

I wonder if there will ever come a time when they just get rid of human pilots altogether. There is only so many g forces that a human body can take.

There's only so many g-forces an airframe can take. They're really quite similar - a properly trained pilot can take nearly as much g-force as the airframe can take (note: in fighters).

High performance aircraft for private use are not as strong as military fighters (the pilot can take more g-force than the plane can). In this case, the pilot needs to take care not to exceed the airframe's limit.

Wait what? Fighter pilots wear special suits that help prevent them from blacking out. A human being cannot take anywhere near as many g forces as an unmanned aircraft could. An unmanned aircraft does not have to worry about the blood leaving its head and going to its legs.

That's circular logic... There's no point in designing a piloted jet that can pull many more G-forces than the squishy pilot that will be inside. If we look at unpiloted aircraft, things like missiles can pull many more Gs than a human could handle. It's no stretch to imagine that future fighter drones will be designed to handle obscene G-forces as well.

Yeah, and missiles stop working as soon as they run out of gas, which is after 10-50 miles, depending on type and size. You see, they don't have real wings, because they don't need to worry about lift, because they aren't expected to stay airborne more than maybe 60 seconds. Plus, they only need to work for those 60 seconds, not 6,000 hours. So, if the frame gets twisted up a bit and the metal gets microcracks, who cares? It's about to blow up...

Add wings to the simple missile design, and the frame becomes a lot less rigid, and less G-resistant. Then add munitions: 2000 to 4000-lb bombs, 2500-lb fuel tanks, etc, all attached to this frame. All of a sudden you really can't pull many Gs. Fact is that you fully load out a plane, and the number of Gs the airframe can pull is generally cut in half, or more. So, even in modern fighter jets (eg F-22) the pilots are more capable of handling Gs (9-15 or so) than fully equipped airframes (5 Gs or so).

And, yeah, if they could build the airframes to handle more Gs fully loaded, they would (and have), even if it meant the planes could handle way more Gs than the pilots when flying without any weaponry (they can already), since the planes can always use a forced G-limiter, as 4.5-5th gen fighter/attack planes are fly-by-wire exclusively.

Also, you're forgetting that in air-to-air combat, maneuverability is less important than radar power and missile range and stealth. Maneuverability is useful when those other things fail. Really, how important was maneuverability in the last 3 US wars? Now how important was being able to tack on 30,000 points of bombs to the planes and find targets easily with radar?

Edit:Talking more about the F-22, it's been said to be able to handle up to 22 G maneuvers without ripping itself apart (which would temporarily blackout any human operator, save maybe the very best show pilots), but that said it's only really rated for 9.5 Gs (roughly the same as a 1970s F-16). Reason why? Longevity, basically. You won't tear the airframe apart at 15-25 Gs, but it will cause a lot of strain on the frame, which can be the same as basically making it unflyable. Even if it lands, it may never be going back up.

Additionally, you have to realize that a lot of the reasons planes are so G-limited is weight and size - smaller (like a missile) would be stronger, but they have to be large for: (1) long-range flights and the requisite fuel, (2) large, sophisticated radar, (3) large weapon loadouts, and (4) large engines to power all of this to supersonic speeds with high acceleration. The small cockpit is the least of the stress issues.

Now, drones certainly could have a function in air-to-air combat, just as they do now as limited strike aircraft for air-to-ground, but for the foreseeable future they'd only really be a benefit if they were small, cheap, and carried very limited missiles (1-2) in a small, stealthy package that used datalinks with larger craft with more powerful radar systems to aim their missiles. Imagine 100s of small, $2M, almost impossible-to-lock-onto, 1-missile drones, all not actively emitting radar, but rather reading off the radar of an AWACS or other plane, which could glide around at 40,000 feet. They would tear apart any manned flights with very minimal losses and dominate the air.

That said, if you ever need large-scale bombing, you're really better off with low-G airframes that can haul a lot of weaponry, and there's no reason to make such planes unmanned.

I really hope they change the name at some point soon, "UCLASS" and "UNCLASS" are too close to each other; especially since both the design documents/blueprints/operating manuals/etc and surveillance data gathered by the UCLASS drone will most likely be a classification other than UNCLASS.

One thing is for sure, drone warfare has NO CLASS...mano y mano on the ground is the gentlemen's way settle up...

I really hope they change the name at some point soon, "UCLASS" and "UNCLASS" are too close to each other; especially since both the design documents/blueprints/operating manuals/etc and surveillance data gathered by the UCLASS drone will most likely be a classification other than UNCLASS.

One thing is for sure, drone warfare has NO CLASS...mano y mano on the ground is the gentlemen's way settle up...

Really? And how do you propose to do that at sea?

You don't. You show up at their doorstep, knock politely, offer the appropriate salutation and greeting, air your grievances, declare that mano y mano combat outside, right now, is the only redress possible. Or you could meet in the iconic deserted island when out at sea.

The F-35 isn't a bad concept. Its just that when you try to design what is in effect 3 radically different requirements into a single airframe...

it doth not work so well.

Also...gross mismanagement and perverse incentives. The USAF, in particular, seems really awful at procurement. They haven't built a new aircraft on-time and under budget since...well...the F-117. Which was forced into retirement because of how bad the Raptor was over-cost. The B-2, C-17, E-10, F-22, KC-767 were all grossly over budget. The E-10 and KC-767 were cancelled (the latter rebid). The B-2 and F-22 were slashed to a fraction of their intended numbers. The C-17 puts a lot of pork in a lot of pockets and the entirety of the Joint Chiefs seems unable to kill it even though the Air Force already has more planes than they ever wanted.

They're mostly just bad at writing requirements. They gloss over things that are somewhat mandatory background stuff for what they want and focus on the "big ticket item" type requirements, so savvy contractors like LockMart underbid, knowing they can find more physical requirements after the contract competition is over, and use those to drive the total price back up to where they want it to be.